Conservation Biology

Human-caused changes in the earth’s ecosystems are responsible for the decline and extinction of the world’s biological diversity.

In the Conservation Biology Research Group, we study the ecology of at-risk species in response to key drivers: habitat loss, habitat fragmentation, habitat degradation, invasive species, alteration of ecosystem process, and global climate change.

Using a population-ecology lens, we use field and quantitative methods to address pivotal ecological questions. We seek to understand the relative contributions of individual, population and landscape-level processes to the population viability of endangered species as these processes interface with realistic conservation interventions. Our work largely uses at-risk butterflies in Pacific Northwest Prairies as a model system to address fundamental ecological questions while simultaneously tackling focal questions to guide on-the-ground practice